Projections
by ParlorGamesToMe
Summary: "To the point- now the point always escapes Thor, strings of silver floating past, barely distinguishable in his limiting vision- Thor remembers Loki. More than most, not always flatteringly, but he remembers and often wishes he didn't." What happened to Thor and the others after Loki fell. Leads up to Avengers.


Thor remembers Loki. Remembers him- _remembers_- oh, he remembers him as if Loki's shadow intertwines with his still. Remembers Loki- Loki untinged by wintry blues and reddened eyes, Loki was never that sickly shade to Thor, he was always Loki, just Loki, parentage mattered not, for no matter what he was always truly, inextricably, irrefutably _Thor's. _Brother, failed you brother, failed you more than most and you fell, brother, plummeted down down down- he never let go, Loki, he never let go, but you slipped nonetheless into something less savory, something dingier and untouched by light. Thor raves- in his mind, naturally, free from discourse here. No need to rehash detrimental details with Frigga and Odin walking about like half buried bones.

To the point- now the point always escapes Thor, strings of silver floating past, barely distinguishable in his limiting vision- Thor remembers Loki. More than most, not always flatteringly, but he remembers and often wishes he didn't.

He fears, sometimes, if Loki is still plunging downwards into nowhere. If he no longer breathes, empty, somehow hollower than that paper doll model thing Thor viewed on the Bifrost. If his limbs will fall off, one by one, and continue to drop without him. If his eyes rattle in their sockets, shrinking upon themselves until they become small green pebbles bouncing against the inside of his head. If if if if and how and why and when and if if if, the particular machinations so technical that Thor never really understood before and certainly doesn't understand now.

The details often fell to Loki. Thor was always confident in his dear brother's definite capability. Now he wishes he had fixated more on the elusive mechanics; perhaps they would lay the troubling swarms of worries in his mind to a final rest. Elimination, elimination, elimination of everything that comprised Thor, and what is Thor without dear Loki, the glimmering eyed figure that trailed him like a leeching shadow. Loki lurks within Thor, inseparably woven in a clever iron thread that adjusts as Thor's body shakes.

For the first few nights afterward, once the feasting had ended- for wasn't Loki's life supposed to be celebrated, not mourned?-, Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg, and Sif had trailed after Thor, eyes reflecting concern, though for whom Thor could never determine. The men were more than happy to share stories of Loki in their earnest attempts to alleviate Thor's suffering. He was glad when they skated over details of Loki during his banishment. Even then, the full events had not been illuminated. Quite frankly, he preferred it remain that way.

For a few passing moments, they almost helped, too. _Almost._ Loki had long been the problem, and constant reminders of his flickering silhouette- not next to you, Thor, he had to repeat to himself, there is nothing beside you but your own shadow- drove Thor away from his friends. Loki had fallen and still, he hadn't left. Thor couldn't quite decide what pained him: the unstated presence of Loki in their words or the lack thereof.

Volstagg mimed a rather impressive reenactment of a past battle, with Loki's clever plan that saved them all. Sif smiled rather dully, a knife's blade corroding. Her hand fell onto Thor's and he was rather glad of it. She knew when to fall silent, unable to compose any epitaph of comfort. Only Sif came closest to aiding him. She made no excuses for Loki nor revealed further scandalous details. She just let him die; Thor acceded to her plan, desiring to follow suit. But no matter how he tried, he could never bury Loki.

Falling, scared and senseless and half dead- maybe all dead, Thor had no accurate inkling- was Loki tumbling and descending and dropping and screeching, so frightened without Thor? He _needed_ Thor; and somehow, still, Loki moved about in places his brother knew not. The veracity of his fever stricken projections never was verified. Thor could only see Loki- Loki weeping, lost without his brother, not a child anymore, but lost nonetheless. Someone had misplaced him along the way. Thor couldn't define who. So many culprits waited for blame, him most prominently among them, yes, _him_ in their midst.

He allowed Sif's hand to clench his. Her nails dug into his palm when Fandral imitated Loki in a rather tasteless manner. Not that Fandral would notice. He barreled along, undeterred, scraping away at Thor in his best efforts to cure his friend.

Can't cure someone, not from this, there is no waking up and changing into someone else. They are stuck, stuck, stuck, in the chemical waste and no digging will get them out. Can't just get over this, don't even have a body to bury, a casket to bawl over, not even ashes to send off. Scarcely anyone would mourn, anyways. Loki died- or did he, Thor couldn't determine- and something called out for a further tribute than his funeral hymns. Sanity- such a precious commodity in the wake of total obliteration- Thor longed for sanity to restore him and them and her and renew the splinters of dissension sown by hands that never could hold on.

And if Thor leaned on Sif for support, as if his bones have been stolen in the painful minutes elapsed, she certainly made no mention of it. She sat straight, upright, and braced him with an unmoving shoulder. Silently, faithfully, she let that gelatinous lump of a man lean against her, ever so boneless in his grief. His pain trickled into her, steady, unceasing, an umbrage she hardly desired to welcome, but kindly let it in. Her eyes gazed ahead, but Thor had no time to wonder what horrors she was seeing. Thor was already…misplaced.

Now, though, things stream far less coherently, all traces of pity already buried under rocky earth. The soil that never covered Loki seeps into Thor, makes him filthy, if he was ever uncontaminated.

After the first week, only Sif comes by. Her visits pass, mostly wordless, just the most beautiful exchange of pleasantries.

"Ah, the weather has been most fortunate recently."

"The roast boar tonight was rather dry, wasn't it?"

"Did you hear that a stable horse kicked Fandral in the face? He has a rather lovely hoof shaped bruise around his eye. Volstagg calls him Horseshoes now."

"Give my best to your parents."

"Your new boots are quite fetching."

"The arena is rather boring without you. I wish you would come by."

"You should join me outside, Thor. I would love for us to take a walk together."

The substance leaks out of the words, replaced by an odd sense of meaning, as if more than simple anecdotes and comments are being conveyed. Thor misses everyday conversation, that much is true, but he misses the person they happened with, too. He settles and yet doesn't settle for Sif. She is more than he has earned, a gift he has no one really to thank for. What he wouldn't give to not have the opportunity of receiving her unceasing grace.

Even so, or, more precisely, directly so, soon Sif's visits falter. The durations gradually decrease. The conversations flow with even less fervor than before, and there was hardly plenty present to begin with. Still, like an apparition, twice a week she appears at his door. Thor wonders sometimes if someone has conjured her, a golem made from his grief. Reality- the before, when he was not made from thin strips of yellowing bark- disintegrates around him, in his mind until, really, until he cannot untangle fact from fiction.

When her visits slow, Thor can hardly blame her. He is mad, mad, mad, hair tangling in a greasy mass of almost curls. His eyes have acquired a brutish glint, an animosity that has begun to scare small children. A little girl screamed as he passed her in the gardens the day before; he has taken it as a sign to avoid the outdoors. The sun only hurts his eyes, anyways. It burns his skin and climbs within the flesh, blazing still as he sits in his room, fabric draped over windows already closed.

Sif refrains from pleading with him. She cannot calm Thor any more than she can calm a storm- and even Thor has been losing the ability to command lightening. He couldn't even command his brother to stay beside him one night more. Useless, which one of them was _useless_?

Sif just cocks her head, as if listening to a frequency Thor cannot pick up. He pricks his ears momentarily, but then abruptly loses interest.

"I'm so, so sorry, Thor." Is all Sif can say, one dreary evening, her voice cracked along the edges like a broken vase that was never correctly reassembled. Finally, she has arrived at those finite words, having exhausted all her other combinations of evasion. He senses her guilt, but doesn't pursue it.

And he sobs against something- her chest he realizes later, for she has deciphered his need before he could recognize it in himself. She lets him fracture; his shrapnel strikes her, but she doesn't waver, doesn't let the broken glass fall out of her eyes and onto him. She doesn't permit herself to cry. His tears hit her skin like acid. Still, Sif anchors herself, mouth a straight pink line: set, resolute, voiceless.

Thor falls asleep that night in her arms. He wakes up under moist covers, his head resting firmly upon a wet pillow. Sif stands guard, eyelids shut, at a chair near the foot of the bed. She faces the door like a sentry, ever the consummate warrior. When Thor pushes aside the sheets and approaches her, he can almost make out two tiny tracks drying down her cheeks. His footsteps rouse her, and her hands rapidly brush her cheeks, ridding them of any evidence he may have thought he found. He remembers, fleetingly, that he thought he loved her once.

"Did you dream?" Sif inquires, wiping away vestiges of sleep from her eyes. She yawns quietly. Thor blinks thickly, as if he can answer the question, and her lips curl in a poor attempt at a smile. "I suppose that is rather obvious. I can recall." She manages a weak chuckle. Neither of them can muster any good humor. It is then that Thor realizes she remembers, too, and clearly wishes she didn't.

"Did I speak?" Thor queries. Her nose wrinkles and her lips quirk into a facsimile of an expression. Her face feels like melted wax. She can hardly imagine what Thor's feels like after the painful tangles of sleep still matted into his sheets.

"No." she lies, so convincingly that he knows not to further pursue the question. Thor almost smiles.

"Thank you." Thor doesn't expound further.

"I wish you did not have to thank me for this, Thor. I truly do." Sif answers, her voice unambiguous, definite in its excruciating meaning. Her mouth, once more, attempts a smile, but falters miserably. With that, she turns on her heel and makes her way out of the room. Thor's hand reaches for her shoulder and catches only a gust of air. The door shuts without much fanfare. It closes, and the room feels empty even with Thor inside of it.

Thor tugs on a change of clothing. It rumples around the waist, and he notices how loose it hangs. He makes note to eat more; by the time night falls, he will have already forgotten.

The door creaks as it opens. Thor's eyes scan the halls-finding no one- so he hurries to the hall. Frigga and Odin's almost untouched breakfast sits, cold and unappetizing on their plates. Thor absentmindedly takes a few bites. The food tastes like mud, but he chews, again and again, grinding the mouthful down. He swallows, then repeats the process for a little while longer. Enough to keep him going. His food, as well, remains mostly intact.

He catches a glance of his reflection in the shining gold at the bottom of his cup. The disheveled broken man thing gaping back at him does indeed look like a monster. An inherent lunacy sparkles in his eyes, so insane that it could almost be genetic; he regretfully recalls Loki's light green eyes courting with madness, the same thing Thor now woos. The sensation elicits a raw fear.

Before Thor can register it, the cup clatters to the floor. A few stray drops of drink splatter scarlet spots on the otherwise pristine floor. Thor doesn't even glance back as he exits the room. He knows what he will see, and the thought hardly pleases him. One day, perhaps, Loki's essence will do far more than merely imbue him. The transmutation anticipates its inevitable action.

Death and destruction, destruction and death, all those good for nothing wastes of shell things, brothers none of them, what repulsive things they provided; should've just let that baby squall and starve, should have pressed a large hand over the mouth of his golden haired child and not relinquished as he became blue as his brother. Good kings save their people, and the people of Asgard, of Midgard, of Jotunheim, even, needed protection from Odin's abominations. Surely, a wise king would have enacted the deeds, a duty necessitated by his title alone. Odin's benevolence still waits to be seen.

The sunlight glistens off droplet covered windows, miniature rainbows reflecting from the dots of water. Thor turns his head away. He instead follows the path of unlit candles covered in hardened tracks of wax. He can't exactly pinpoint where he is going, but the route is imprinted into a vital, long unused section of his brain. He obeys instinct.

Along the way, through stony halls and gilded walls, the color of green somehow emerges in his mind. Green clothes against a slimmer body. Green eyes that glimmer and change, permutations in a cackling skull. Green of meadows. Green scintillating with other colors upon the Bifrost. Green, green, green. When he arrives at the library, he silently curses Loki, curses the hold still upon him. Against his better judgment, his huge hand grips the door handle. The door creaks as it opens. The welcoming scent of old, musty books greets Thor.

His blue eyes scan the books, things he never really had the time for. He'd prefer to hear Loki's smooth voice glide across the words. When the library was otherwise unoccupied, as a child, he often pestered Loki to read aloud to him. The texts were seldom about anything other than magic, and often were written in a tongue incomprehensible to Thor. Still, they came out rhythmic, meaningful, rich from Loki's lips. His voice evoked images so crisp, Thor can still picture some of them. They swirl around him, providing the merest scintilla of pleasure. He has almost forgotten what gratification feels like, and it nearly becomes him to invoke the feeling.

He pulls out a volume with a red spine and golden stitched words along its side. Well, they are more symbols than words, and Thor knows not what they signify. He spreads the book upon the table, opening it towards the middle. If he can't comprehend any of it, then it hardly matters where he starts. Not a single picture adorns the page and the symbols are almost unreadable in their size. Instead, though, he sees not the difficulty but Loki's sharp angled face.

He lets memory speak to him. His eyes shut, and his hearing takes over. Words, nonsense to Thor, but music from Loki's lips, swim through the room. Thor wouldn't have been surprised if someone else confessed to hearing it as well, so clear are they to him. Nothing but graceful words off of a silver tongue, something smithed by Loki that Thor could never quite imitate. He should have told Loki more often, should have praised him to the moon until Loki tired of his acclaim. He should have enjoyed the stories more, should have reveled in them, should have drunk them in while the time presented itself.

Thor looks at the book and sees without seeing. So lost is he in something beautiful, however fragmented, that the noise of a door slowly opening doesn't even reach Thor's ears. He hears only Loki. The moment shatters like a fist through glass.

A blonde woman emerges. She saunters through rows of books, only to spot a teary Thor with an incomprehensible tome placed before him. Her pink lips open, ready to extend an offer to translate, only to find a conspicuous paucity of words. So, she closes them, settling on a tightly laced mouth as opposed to a gaping stare. Amora heads towards the door, eyes darting about. Her loss festers with flies, the buzzing pests so prominently present in Thor's moldering body; she hardly wishes to draw more clamoring insects. The door waits, tantalizingly near. In her eagerness to escape, her leg bangs into a shelf. Two books fall to the floor. Another three follow suit. Immediately, a rosy blush spreads across her pale cheeks.

Thor, startled, jumps right out of his seat. Amora's drawn mouth unfastens again to emit an apology, but then, like a broken music box, nothing emerges. Thor's eyes rest their vision a few feet above her head. The mere act of glimpsing her threatens to unstitch him. He has worked far too laboriously mending himself, so his gaze doesn't drop down to her dismayed face.

His blue eyes linger on the nonsensical runes in the book, as if they provide the most riveting information. Courteously, almost in a perceptible relief, Amora focuses her fixation to the five books stretched undignified across the carpeted floor. The avoidance almost doesn't sting.

They do not even nod in acknowledgement.

Amora departs soundlessly, gone so suddenly that Thor may have never truly perceived her, just a memory gliding across the wind. She has to be. After all, she was clad in green.

No wind in the castle, he chastises himself. Nothing here.

Hours later, he can still not coax Loki's ineffable voice towards him once more. At least he doesn't toss the book to the ground in a rage. Perhaps he has finally learned something in the library. The idea is nearly amusing.

When he stirs from his position in the library, the moon and stars have settled rather contentedly in the sky. They shine mockingly.

Thor pursues the corridors of lit candles, eyes avoiding the pinpricks of stars in the windows. His face shines unpleasantly from the mirrored surfaces. An army of fettered mockeries of the _mighty _Thor witness him viciously, each one more malicious then last. He doesn't concede to their wordless taunts. He knows brutality; it was instilled within him at a young age and instantly forfeited to putrescence, never really absconding. It settled in for the long haul, for eternity, for his bones to crack around it and his blood to freeze.

When Thor was a small child, with his hand clasped around that of his father's and with his brother on his father's opposite, he saw his first dead man. The man's eyes weren't even closed. His hands didn't rest peacefully upon his still chest. He just stared, green eyes filled with the same lack of anything that Thor soon would grow to recognize. Odin's hand fell slack. He relinquished Thor's hand; Loki's too- both of them relinquished.

Thor began to weep without comprehending his sorrow, went to run towards the man and offer him some paltry bit of comfort. If he shook him, would the man jolt back to life? Odin swiftly scooped up Thor in capable arms and held his son close to his chest. Thor could hear the unsteady beat of Odin's heart, the inconsistent staccato of a father irresolute.

From the safety in Odin's arms, Thor surveyed Loki, a tiny little black haired creature, barely past a toddler. Loki put a chubby, grimy hand to his mouth and rested his fingers upon his thin lips. Loki viewed the dead man rotting, two ravens pecking at his green eyes- like marbles, round marbles, Thor would recollect later. Odin's head tilted downwards, almost indiscernible. The ravens cawed. Their black wings spread and gathered them into the sky. Thor can, if he tries hard enough, still recollect the rotting matter on their beaks.

Thor shook in his father's arms, wracked with grief for a man he hadn't ever encountered before. Odin held him tenderly, his single eye softening at Thor's troubled visage. But Loki, Loki just watched, fascinated with the process of it all. Odin's love muted then. Loki's sick fascination startled him, and Thor could recognize the disruption as Odin's heart skipped a beat. Loki stared, enraptured in something none of them could ever interpret. They never even began to decode it. He watched, watched, watched, as Odin embraced Thor protectively. And Odin let him. Let him, shouldn't have allowed him that luxury, no, no, no, no.

Thor begged, that night, to sleep in Loki's bed. Reluctantly, Odin agreed, though it was more of Frigga's words than Thor's tearful eyes that persuaded him. It never felt like a victory.

Thor clung to his brother, curling around him, trying to erase the dead man's unending blank stare. When Loki woke up screaming, shaking, Thor held him tenderly. Odin and Frigga rushed in, but by then, Loki had composed himself. Thor, who did have the evidence of tears down his face, claimed the wild fear as his.

He never did ask Loki if he remembered; Thor preferred the idyllic safety of uncertainty. Never ask, never know, never agonize. He should have _asked_.

Thor's stomach rumbles and the sound echoes like a monster's growl about the walls. It alerts him to dinnertime. Though he doesn't wish to join Frigga and Odin as yet another reminder that he isn't enough to fill the gaping wound in their sides, Thor ambles indolently to join them. What part was Loki? Not the heart, never the heart, not the center of it all. Thor can't place his brother's location, but it scarcely matters.

When he enters the room, Frigga and Odin sit alone in a vast hall. Already, the servants have cleared away the remnants of others.

Lately, Frigga and Odin have taken to eating alone. The hushed hall suited them better, anyways, they had found. After the numerous feasts in Loki's honor, Frigga couldn't stomach the sycophantic, sorrow-less crowds. Besides, Thor honestly enjoyed or as much as he could- the dearth of conversation.

But that night, strangely, the voiceless room doesn't suit him. Frigga picks at her food, eying the door ahead as if expecting a guest.

"He is not coming back home, is he?" Thor says suddenly. His sentence emerges vociferous, clear and booming, so high in volume that it startles all of them. It hangs in the air, waiting to be refuted. Deny it, deny it all, he pleads in between the lines. Frigga takes a well timed bite of food. She mulls over the question, swallows, and nearly answers.

"No, Thor." Odin answers. Maybe he speaks further, illuminates the venomous words, makes it all fine, but the clarifications do not reach his son. Memory plays a crueler harmony.

No, Thor. No, Thor. No, Thor. So familiar that it strikes a chord only Odin and Thor can hear.

"_No, Loki."_

Thor eats the rest of the meal in silence.

The next day, he sleeps until the sun is raised up in the middle of the sky. A sigh escapes his lips. Sometimes, he thinks it would be unproblematic to never awaken. Thor shakes his head deploringly and tells himself to stop being so dramatic.

Thor pulls on his boots and dresses himself. Though he will never admit it, his trust for Odin has steadily decayed since destruction of the Bifrost. He stays hushed. Instead of voicing the revelation, he nestles inside the role of grieving son, voiceless son, obedient son, the only son now.

Thor stalls, keeps the inevitable from occurring. He is far from satiated; his mind hungers for the truth, for the fickle thing that tastes like lemons on his tongue. He never speaks it now if he can manage it.

Soon, though, he can delay no longer. The time approaches. It hits him, squarely on the heart, and yanks like a string. Something forceful drags him from the room.

Thor takes the more obscure passageways. No need to frighten children; Odin never would have guessed that he would nurture two such monstrous sons. Then again, he never predicted anything correctly. He should have kept his eye. Maybe then, his vision would be far less limited.

Thor's feet guide him with expertise. When he reaches Heimdall, his body inadvertently shudders. He is cold again.

"Thor." Heimdall's deep voice reaches him. "I thought you would show up sooner."

Thor can't even fire off a snappy retort. Never was his forte. He just shrugs uselessly.

"You may come inside." Heimdall informs him. Why does everything he speak sound so grave?

"Thanks." Mutters Thor. His eyebrows knit together, not in bewilderment, but from an ineptitude in his recently modified functioning. He rarely speaks anymore; from lack of practice, his tongue is a withered pink thing flopping ineffectually in his mouth.

"I suppose we should not make small talk. I hardly have the time, and I see that you never had the patience. Please, ask. Entertain my fancy- I wish to see if my intuition is correct." Heimdall says, not smugly, though the words certainly could have emerged so. No, instead, he speaks precisely, almost with a scientific interest, scorn courteously removed for Thor's benefit.

"Can you- can you see him?" Thor spits out. He is too earnest to blush.

"Your brother? He is shrouded from me." Heimdall responds mysteriously. The mystic edge to his words irks Thor; however, he suppresses his emotions and speaks once more.

"Perhaps he is hiding. He did before, did he not?" Thor hopes. Heimdall's eyes sharpen in an almost scolding manner, tinged with pity. His lips thin into a long, even line. He takes a measured breath, deciding between false kindness and brutal sincerity.

"Or, perhaps, Thor, he is dead." Heimdall states flatly, as if lecturing a very young child.

Thor says nothing else. He is suddenly ravenous. He prevents himself from slamming the door, a rash gesture Loki would have deplored. Then again, Loki was never fond of dear Heimdall, and the detestation- though more muted before the end- had been mutual.

He makes his way through the darkness. Should've brought a candle, he chides himself, making small talk with the voices in his mind. He prepares to say something, words of value, words of power, words of length, words of grace, words of strength, words words words, a labyrinth of predetermined vowels and consonants.

The voices in his head dissent. Not this, nor that, stupid to even consider this, perhaps those, no maybe not, fool, do you wish to shame them with your ill formed thoughts, no, too crude, never enough, find the words, not here, nor there…

By the time he has reached Frigga and Odin at the table, he has arranged a careful order of words. He never was silver tongued. That pink flaccid organ, limp as a dead fish, moves within his mouth, casting aside his fastidious plan.

"Do you remember the day," Thor gasps out as he settles into his place at the table. The side across from him is unfilled. "that you took us to the meadow and packed a meal? Mine was stolen by a bird- he took it straight out my hand and Loki laughed so very noisily. Drink came from his nose, and then he laughed no longer, covered in a sticky liquid." Thor stops, ashamed at his outburst. To his thankfulness, Frigga looks up from her food, a slight smile gracing her lips.

"And then," Frigga continues lightly. "He sat there, shocked, knowing not whether to cry or laugh once more."

"He settled for both." Thor grins widely. The two of them manage slight mirth. Frigga sounds like rusty wind chimes.

"He always did go for both, didn't he? He wanted anything he could get his hands on." Frigga says, almost joking, as if it doesn't hurt her to speak of his longing for dominance.

"He wanted everything." Thor reiterates. Why he says so, Thor doesn't know. Still, the two of them share a feeling of warmth. No, more lukewarm than anything, but better than the frigidness of before.

"Though I do not recall you starving." Frigga muses. Her eyes rest on Thor, hoping for further illumination, as though memory has deprived her of the concluding result.

"In time, he divided his sandwich with me. He was always-" Thor's recollections are cut off by a sudden harsh interruption.

"I came for dinner, not useless chatter. Character studies will serve no purpose." Odin scoffs. "You dwell and dwell upon things that only cause you pain. It is an idiotic cycle. We have already held his funeral; we need not revise things better left unrepeated."

"Husband-" protests Frigga. Her hand makes it halfway to him before he turns away. It meets an influx of air. Odin is already half way out the door before her hand clatters onto the table.

Thor fiddles with his food. He cannot bear Frigga's gaze, nor any more blame of situations turned foul.

"I think he is coming home, too, Thor. We just have to give him time. It was a disconcerting fall, but he will return. I know his heart better than my own." Frigga reassures her son. Her tone shies from convincing, as if persuading Thor will alleviate her doubt and Loki will be born anew.

Thor doesn't retort; if she knew his heart better, then maybe someone could have stopped Loki. He will not let her shoulder all that blame that he never knew she bore. But he cannot find any way to alleviate her, so Thor just kisses the top of her plaited hair. None of them know where the words are now. Maybe Loki stole them away with him. Anything to rub salt into the wounds he inflicted. Never let anything grow again, that sounded like him.

Thor leaves his mother more shattered than he found her. He is more adept at destroying day by day, unwillingly continuing his brother's legacy. Didn't want him to live on- live on as if he is dead- in that particular way. Live Loki does- or doesn't, Thor can't disconnect his hope from solid facts.

He passes a moonlit window. Something tugs him to the glass. His hand moves to the frame, tracing it purposelessly. Only then does he notice the figure at the edge of the Bifrost. Thor squints to no avail. All he can discriminate is a whirring hum of blurry colors.

Thor's curiosity leads him to the Bifrost. It makes a high, soft groaning noise as his feet touch it, mewling in protest. It clearly remembers their last encounter.

To his surprise, Thor finds Odin there. His legs dangle above the chasm, motionless. Odin's head is contained in his enormous hands, held in a makeshift cradle.

Odin's stillness comes to an abrupt conclusion. His body shakes, and Thor is shocked to hear the muffled noise of his father openly weeping. A wail- primal, atavistic in its keen- tears itself from his mouth.

Thor wants to portray Odin as uncouth, a soulless monster fed by the flesh of his children. He wants Odin to be a horrid king and an even worse father, so he can finally choose someone to blame. He wants anything but to see his father this way, sobbing, a marionette unstringed, a thing so far from malicious.

Odin has snatched away everything he has ever given Thor, even this paltry comfort.

Anger strikes him- no more than anger, far more than that stunted emotion- resentment, yes, resentment is what flows through Thor. Every story needs a villain, each side an antagonist.

Thor had imagined Loki against a faceless mob at first. Their bodies mingled, melting together into puddle of flesh upon the grass. Then, the flesh would rise up, whorls of color spinning upwards, covering a once bare skeleton. Only one eye socket was filled; the other had been covered by a golden patch. Now, though, the gold falls to the ground- brother, he was never gold- over the Bifrost and down into the expanse of nothing- brother, he was never whole. Thor watches figments, unable to understand that it is his face staring back at him.

He wonders when he became Loki's greatest detractor.

Thor prevents himself from comforting his father. He owes the man nothing, nothing at all. So, he stands as his dear father breaks his own heart again and again. Yes, Thor says nothing, the task Odin was always talented at.

A brief thought- a revolting treason- crosses Thor's mind. It strikes him, a single note echoing as it slices through his mind. Brief, but still eminently, hideously tangible, it rings. He inches forward instinctively. Thor almost complies, if only to stifle the din; he almost pushes Odin over the edge and watches intently as his father slips down, down, down.

Thor stops, bewildered at the ferocity rampant in his desires. The urge doesn't take over him, but it doesn't depart either.

Odin's body shakes in his supposed solitude. Thor leaves him to splinter, to perhaps tumble over the fractured bridge and rid the world of his face ripped in twain.

"…but never doubt that I love you." Loki once vowed.

But doubt Thor does. Everything is muddled now, colors running. The foundations crumble- if they were ever there at all- and he wonders if Loki lied once more. Whatever alternative is more grievous, Thor cannot decode.

He cannot even remember the shape of his own face, the color of his eyes, the sound of his booming voice. Loki, Loki, Loki, slips in and burns it all to the ground. From the ashes, he grins manically, teeth like arrow tips cutting through his bloodied lips.

Sometimes, Thor doesn't even see his own face in the mirror.

Loki encases it all- whatever it is- smooth silk over Thor's eyes- blue, they are blue, or are they green, he cannot tell where Loki's features end and his materialize. He lets Loki take over- conquered from afar.

Ever since the evening he encountered Odin on the bridge, Thor's mind always drifts back to the Bifrost, as if he never really abandoned his father there. The nightmares resume, steady as clockwork, of falling. Loki lets him go- or sometimes, he lets himself go, and notices the green clothes upon his body. A scream echoes out that was not his own- Loki's torn from his cracked lips, as Odin coolly surveys his descent. Thor, thick, stupid, worthless _Thor_ watches him sink until his silhouette shrinks into nothingness.

Upon his awakening, Thor always considers jumping over the edge. Really, he assures himself, it wouldn't be so fearsome. The sinking could be almost peaceful, air forming a cocoon around him, an invisible chrysalis. Yes, how he fantasizes about jumping after Loki. The terror wouldn't lie in the descent, but in that final, inevitable moment of impact, of flesh sizzling in a pile against the stone. He wants to jump after Loki, but doesn't know what he would find- if anything. If he dwells long enough, stays at Asgard complacent and good, maybe his brother will return to him.

And in that unlikely event, Loki needn't apologize to Thor. No, he would greet Loki with open arms, contriteness spewing from his mouth in a most unsightly manner. Sorry, so sorry, he would weep, undignified, ungraceful, but possibly a semblance of enough. Thor owes his brother that much.

He hopes Loki is not falling still.

The thought of joining his brother, wherever the elusive creature lurks, imprints itself upon Thor. Jump, he commands himself as he looks out his windowsill. Jump, Thor. You can end it. You can end it all. Tonight, you can do it tonight.

But he doesn't. Days pass, and he futilely orders himself to comply. Jump, Thor, and plunge. He did it and so can you. Are you cowardly?

And maybe, Thor is wretched in his weakness- a coward, a curse upon the house of Odin; now, he doesn't even comprehend what strong is. Still, he doesn't tumble over the Bifrost, mimicking his brother. It isn't fear that stops him, but Frigga. She needs not cry for another son. He cannot bear her agony, even from afar. Thor protects her- can't fail anyone else again, not again, again, again and again and again.

He _is _strong, Thor tells himself. He is strong, strong, strong, yes, he is strong. He repeats it for hours, for days, for weeks- the passage of time eludes him- until it is nearly believable.

Occasionally, Thor forgets to speak. His vocal chords freeze- so cold is he, so very cold- and constrict. He gulps, undignified, the converse of a king, and cannot expel the words from his body. They balance on his tongue and cling to the buds. Strings connect to the words, but no amount of force can coax speech from Thor's mouth. Instead, the strings sway in the breeze, silver filaments dangling from Thor's cracked lips. No one dares pull and draw out unregulated utterances.

So when Heimdall emerges purposefully at dinner, it is safe to say he is prematurely speechless.

"All-Father, something urgent has…come up." Heimdall prefaces. "We must talk, privately preferably." Odin nods slowly. Thor's heart races, and he braces himself for the eminent disappointment. War, is it, with Jotunheim now? Yes, most likely war. Bloody battles and pointless skirmishes, kill and maim and cripple realms while the Yggdrasil shakes unsteadily as the carnage reaches down the branches, trickling into the roots. War. Thor can almost wrap his mind around it; didn't he want that, once, some day past? Then again, he envisioned an absent person at his side, the two of them heroes.

Frigga eyes her husband.

"I am coming as well." She states, no room for argument.

"Of course." Odin agrees. "I would not have it otherwise."

"And anything you say in front of me," Frigga reasons. "You may say in front of Thor. He must be privy to such things." She blinks. Her bony arm extends, welcoming. When did she become so emaciated? Odin begins to make a grunt of disagreement, but instantly Frigga silences him with a sharp shushing noise. Odin falls flat. His lips purse and his arms cross in front of his broad chest. Still, he gives in.

"Heimdall," Frigga says kindly, imperiously, as if she can summon regality to surround her again. "Please, sit down."

"Thank you, my queen." He answers graciously.

Thor utters nothing. Passive, he waits. Time for the fruits of his campaigning, the rotten, shriveled apples falling into his lap.

"Please, take some food." Frigga tells Heimdall as hospitably as she can manage. Without his opinion, she fills a plate with a thick hunk of bread, some warm potatoes, and a slab of tender meat. Her hand shakes as she gives him the full plate.

"Thank you." Heimdall takes the plate. He pauses, deep in thought, hesitant as of how to begin. He doesn't eat. "Conflict has begun on Midgard-"

Thor's mind suddenly snaps back to Jane. He hasn't visited those memories in a while. Instead, he punished himself by viewing the same torturous set. Her name hits him like a rush of water. It may have been unspoken, but it ricochets against the walls of his mind. He wonders if he ever loved her, before, if he could have rushed back to her and taken her into his arms and brushed aside all the suffering Loki had caused; sometimes, he feels as if he made a gamble, tried to welcome Jane and still hold onto Loki, only to forfeit them both. It is guilt that burdens him now. Futures, all of them revoltingly concave, wait to be fulfilled, the blank slates he can never alter to his predilections.

His mouth opens, waiting to be filled.

Shockingly, nothing is said.

His mind drifts elsewhere, composing his question. During his distraction, a crucial part of Heimdall's news almost doesn't reach Thor's ears.

"Loki is back." Heimdall informs them gravely. "I have seen him with a new weapon- formidable, too- that gleans its powers from the Tesseract. He has unlocked the door. And I'm afraid his visit is not a peaceful one. He has slaughtered Midgardians in his quest for domination over their home- and he is not acting alone. Something is influencing him, something maleficent and hazardous- not anything from Asgard nor Jotunheim, it seems."

Odin chokes on his words. A strangled noise from the back of his throat resonates deafeningly about the room. Thor cannot help but think that his father would have preferred war to _this_.

"Loki is-" Frigga stammers. Her face both falls and brightens, a mixture of jubilant and horrified. Until then, she had been able to dissuade the murmurings of other Asgardians, to dismiss their rumors and substitute a nobler reality from that Loki had embraced. Before that moment, she had still been able to persuade herself that Loki was, indeed, good.

"On Midgard." Finishes Heimdall, not unpleasantly in his answer. His confirmation does anything but help.

"We must retrieve him." Odin announces. His tone is meager, apprehensive, and all together quite defeated before the fray has begun.

"The Bifrost is still irreparably damaged. I cannot send anyone through." Heimdall explains apologetically. "We will have to find an alternate way. A portal, perhaps, though I alone am not powerful enough to cast one."

"There are routes hidden, relatively unknown." Frigga suggests slowly. She bites her tongue, as if betraying someone. No more suggestions escape her lips.

"Even the shortest could take days or possibly weeks. They are unused for a reason, and we do not have the time to utilize them." Odin tells her. Frigga stares at Thor, away from Odin and Heimdall, away from those who seek to be disloyal to her son. She is a mother, first and foremost. Thor reaches across the table and squeezes her hand. His mind is a profusion of naught.

Odin and Heimdall begin to debate heatedly. Their voices fill the room, an exercise in futility and anger- no, frustration. A thought strikes Thor- Odin's disagreement and dismissal of the plans almost sound as if he is delaying or even trying to discharge them from their endeavor. As if he is afraid of what will return with them, the thing he himself fragmented and indirectly cast into the abyss!

"Amora." Thor mutters. He, unlike Odin, yearns for Loki- or so Thor spins his mindset. Anything to be in the right, Loki's most stalwart hero.

"What was that?" Heimdall jerks away from Odin. His golden eyes turn to the prince. "Thor?"

"Amora." Thor says again, this time louder, clearer. "I believe she could conjure up a portal, with Heimdall and father. Granted that she works with them, then there will be enough power to-"

"It will not be enough to draw Loki back." Odin interrupts. His body stills, a far cry from triumphant.

"It is a possibility, Thor." Heimdall acknowledges. "Not an especially brilliant one, nor the most valuable, but a possibility nonetheless."

"Even then," snaps Odin. "the task is hardly uncomplicated. At best, you will be able to create a brief, one way route. The portal will not be able to stay open long, and its reach will be very feeble. You would be fortuitous to send one person through. It would be-"

"Me." Thor disrupts. "Me. Send me through, father, please. I swear, I will return Loki back to Asgard."

"Answer this: how will you return?" Odin retorts harshly.

"The tesseract." Frigga counters icily. Odin reacts as if he has been burned. Thor, though, grins. "Midgardians should not trifle with it in the first place. It will effortlessly take them home."

"And what if you fail, Thor?" Odin asks. "What then?"

"I will not fail." Thor tells his father though gritted teeth.

"I have already lost one son. I do not wish to lose another!" Odin growls. Outside, two ravens caw.

"Father." Thor says, only to stop. Even Frigga is astonished at the outburst. Odin has actively avoided the subject of Loki, and to bring his other son up now, especially in such a bleak declaration, well, it shocks everyone. Thor once more finds himself speechless.

"No, Thor." Odin decrees.

"So you will abandon him, again, father? Is that how you wish to react? Loki is out there- he is _alive_- and we owe it to him to save him." Thor answers bitterly.

"This is not a debt to be paid."

"He would have saved me if the situation was reversed." Thor answers. "He often did, actually."

"He would have left you to die." Odin says sharply. Thor can see the cogs whirring in his father's mind. Odin almost believes his lie.

"You and I know that is not true."

Odin sighs, overpowered before the battle has begun. "Yes, we do. I still will not allow it. You may not go."

"I have to be the one to bring him back home." Thor explains. "He thinks I discarded him like refuse. It is I who must right the wrongs. I owe it to him. I was supposed to be his brother, and I…I let this happen."

"Loki made himself into this." Odin speaks to Thor, and not to Thor, his voice consoling none.

"Monsters are not born as such." answers Thor. "You know that. You instilled that lesson into me, did you not? You kept me from rashly murdering the Frost Giants. I was reckless, idiotic, and Loki learned those lessons from me. He was lead by-"

"You may have lead him," Heimdall interjects suddenly. "but he chose to follow."

"Enough philosophy." Frigga tells them. "This is not a time for idle chitchat over semantics. My son is alive. We will retrieve him."

"Frigga, Thor should-" Odin begins.

"Absolutely go after his brother." Frigga decides firmly.

"Frigga, Loki is-" Odin disputes.

"My son as well, Odin. I have been silent on this matter far too long. You know my council to be most prudent in its nature. You are manipulated by your emotions, not by what is right for your family." Frigga stands up.

"I am still not entirely confident." Odin says slowly, like his words seep through mud, a sludgy mixture that will never be purified.

"Of course you are not. This is not a straightforward situation. However, this is the best plan we will be able to come up with." Frigga finalizes.

"All-Father, she is right." Heimdall advises.

"I agree with mother." Thor adds. He feels as if he will vomit. Coherent thoughts still do not flow through his mind. Loki is alive or revived; Loki waits. Loki, Loki, Loki, Loki lives. But Thor doesn't feel as overjoyed as he anticipated. No, instead, he feels brittle, as if his bones are hollow things draped with tissue paper.

"Fetch Amora, please, if you will, Heimdall." Odin orders, not unkindly. "Thank you for alerting us of this…matter. Your loyalty is, as always, unquestionable and appreciated."

"Yes, All-Father." Heimdall responds, glad to desert the icy atmosphere that has descended upon the room. The impact of the soles of his boots against the floor fill the air, a constant rhythm that slowly quiets until they cannot even hear it at all.

"Loki will not be the same brother you loved." Odin warns.

"I know. I remember the Bifrost." Thor replies fiercely.

"Brace yourself, Thor. I highly doubt that he is nearly as…pleasant as the brother you fought with that night. He will resist your efforts. He may even strike against you, try to kill you, and take his revenge. Do not underestimate him."

"Are you suggesting I harm my brother?" Thor replies frostily, his words striking Odin in the rawest center.

"No- I am merely warning you of what may come to pass. You are always unreasonably naïve in your representation of Loki's character. No one saw him as you did." Odin continues. Frigga visibly prickles at the words. She finds no victory in the idea of more discord, so she stays hushed, though her eyes simmer with hurt and ire. Thor's hand clutches the table. His fingers leave deep grooves in the wood.

"And you were always unreasonably harsh in your representation of Loki's character. No one saw him as _you_ did." Thor retorts bitterly. This time, it is Odin who prickles at the sound of his words repeated.

"Thor," Frigga whispers. "There is nothing to gain here." Thor starts to snarl at his father, only to notice the misty sheen in Odin's eye.

The doors open.

"You asked for me?" Amora greets them with a question.

"Yes, please, come over here. Do you think that you can do it?" Frigga says quickly.

"Yes, I am quite sure. The assistance will not be unwelcome, though. I must warn you, the portal will not be a particularly powerful one." Amora warns. "And I will probably need a few hours to conjure it."

"Thank you, Amora." Frigga says. Her head turns to face Thor. Her countenance softens, and she smiles slowly, sympathetically. For a moment, Thor thinks she is going to cry at the sight of him. "Thor, darling, why don't you get ready? Clean yourself up and prepare to leave."

"Yes, mother." Thor responds. She kisses him on the cheek, as if he is a child once more. Something in her touch threatens to make tears emerge from his own eyes. Her arms wrap around him gingerly, as if she is not quite sure if he is even present- as if he is never returning.

Frigga loves her sons, that much is obvious, but something unseen chips at her, tells her Loki is not hers, was never hers, and she subconsciously holds Thor tighter, as if he may slip away, too. She cannot lose both of them. And while Odin lets the repulsive urge rule, she fights, stronger, more resilient, than the man she calls husband.

He breaks away from her embrace, unable to hug her back. It feels too much like permanence, an irrevocable change that threatens to split them further.

Odin twitches. His arms rise up, towards Thor, and then drop to his side. His eye stares forward, above Amora's head, locating a single point to dwell upon. Thor, frankly, feels no pang. He's not entirely certain that he could have returned Odin's embrace.

When he reaches his room, Thor avoids the steady, unfiltered reflection in the mirror. His clothes pool into a pile of fabric upon the floor. He sorts through drawers. Most of the outfits are near identical, and each time he tries them on, they don't quite fit. He finally chooses the best one, undresses, and places it onto his unmade bed.

A musty, sweat scented odor follows Thor like a wandering cloud. It permeates the room, saturates it, and he wonders how his parents could even abide being in the same space as him. If not love, then it was pity, he decides.

Thor cannot stop himself from being drawn towards the mirror. Black half moons discolor the area below his eyes, which are singularly, wretchedly vacant. His hair hangs, lank and greasy, the same shade of old gold. Stubble covers his face; when Thor leans closer to the mirror, he can see a few stray bits of food scattered across. His face turns a pale shade of green.

An urge overtakes him to smash it, to throw it to the ground and watch as the glass shatters around him. He wouldn't mind if it sliced him. But, no, he reprimands himself. This is not what he will leave behind. If he never returns, Frigga doesn't need one more mess to clean up. He will not let her remember him as pile of broken glass.

Thor doesn't even scream. Doesn't sob. Doesn't rebel. Doesn't do anything but scrub himself raw and frantically tug a brush through his hair and press a blade against his cheeks, shaving away the stubble, nearly cutting himself. The mirror version reflects, never good enough, never that son nor that once brother nor any semblance of gilded, a changeling that snatched him away- brother, son, brother, son, brother, son neither of those anymore, it screams at him.

No matter how he tries to ready himself, he cannot fully summon the same thing that imbued him before. When Thor dresses himself in his clothes and then puts on his armor, the mirror taunts him. By now, it draws his gaze effortlessly. Despite his labors, Thor cannot make himself the same being Loki once called brother. He wants to impress Loki- that much he knows. His arrogance calls for it- or maybe not arrogance, perhaps that isn't the right word. No, he desires for Loki to remember what he was, what he could be again with his brother at his side. The sentimentality of it all, the humanity in Loki, he longs to draw it out and reassemble his brother. And if he is not the same Thor, how can he expect his brother to become the Loki he used to be?

It wasn't a question of wholeness- he had never been a complete being before. It wasn't a question of worthiness- Thor had always been brash and audacious and wild. No, the two of them never could have existed without the other, not without being thoroughly unbalanced. It was a thing of equilibrium. They stabilized the scales together: Thor's recklessness and Loki's caution, strength versus cunning, boldness versus subtly, each one of them keeping the score from tipping too far in the other's favor. They moved in a delightful disharmony.

Thor tries to breathe, tries to forget and remember in the same instant. What is he without his brother but a half unfulfilled, incomplete and dangerously leaning towards chaos? He vows then, in that moment, to be unmovable for Loki, to be a static point. Never would he reveal the shame of his deterioration, because if he could recover from this, so could Loki.

And if Loki rebuffed him, then Thor wouldn't have revealed his vulnerability; Loki couldn't touch him in that way, couldn't make him hurt- not perceptibly. Thor protects someone, something, and the idea wanes away until he can't categorize his decision as selfish or altruistic. It doesn't really matter. It stays.

The candles in the halls are flickering again. The light dances. Maybe it's Thor's imagination, but they climb higher and higher, anticipating something. They call for change- for death, for birth, for sorrow, for gain, for glee, for regret, for stillness, or even repent- that Thor knows not. Something unalterable, something everlasting. If the odds are in his favor, there is no inkling gathered from the flames.

And then Thor thinks that he wouldn't mind losing. Maybe Loki could draw him in, make them brothers again, as long as Thor joined him.

No- Thor shudders in the heat. Frigga's face, then Sif's, then Amora's, then Fandral's and Hogun's and Volstagg's, and Heimdall's and even Odin's, all of them ever so fearful, they stare back at him within the candles. Can't let them down and break them and let it all burn. Can't, Loki, can't, so sorry brother, can't, just can't. He wants to leave them in that moment, but Thor, even then, will not allow himself the privilege.

"Thor, darling." Frigga's voice jolts him back. "The portal is almost ready. Do you have everything?" Thor holds up Mjolnir apprehensively. Frigga laughs mirthlessly. The sound hurts Thor more than the silence ever could. He nearly abhors her for trying.

"Got it!" cries Amora. "Quickly, go, Thor!" Her hands clutch Odin's and Heimdall's. They nearly envelop her small hands in their palms. An aura of gold and silver surges around them, shrouding them in color. A silver circle opens, initially penny sized, only to augment into something much, much greater. In the center, it glows blue. Tiny veins of gold run from the core, reaching the edge. They move like lightening, and Thor is struck by the portal's resemblance to an eyeball.

Thor cannot even say good-bye. He falls through, backwards, eyes on his mother. The air tastes- yes, tastes, a strange smattering of molecules that flow through his eyes and ears and nostrils and mouth- acrid and burnt. Thor falls, finally falls, and finds himself comforted by the endless descent. Lightening crackles around him, inside him, but it pains him not, pains him not. He hears the call of ravens reverberate.

Something metallic flies by him- an object hurling as he savors the tumult. A rope of something green only Thor can see tugs him out of his plunge. He hits the metallic object with a thud. There, he understands, Loki waits.


End file.
